Holiday shopping is starting earlier in the year
Stuck targeting just Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Your customers aren’t. Gen Z starts shopping in June.
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AI is becoming central to how people shop, and the holiday shopping season is no longer confined to Black Friday and Cyber Monday but is spreading across a longer, more dynamic calendar.
Those are two of the findings from Klaviyo’s “2025 Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) Forecast” (registration required), a global study of 7,000 consumers.
While Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain the biggest moment of the year for brands, they’re no longer the only ones that matter. The report says that brands that want to win need to look beyond peak season and use AI to personalize every touchpoint in the customer journey.
Other findings from the report include:
- More than half of consumers plan to use AI to compare prices, search for products, and get personalized recommendations for Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year.
- Christmas, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday remain the three most popular shopping holidays, but Mother’s Day and Prime Day now rank fourth and fifth.
- Consumers want brands to offer deals or discounts on the products they have already browsed multiple times.
- Forty percent of consumers plan to shop during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend, but 20% of consumers make their first holiday purchase between June and August. Gen Z leads this early shopping trend, with 30% starting before traditional sales and 36% saying they don’t time their shopping around any specific event.
As for AI usage, the report found:
- 54% of consumers plan to use AI this holiday season for comparing prices, searching for products, summarizing reviews, and receiving tailored recommendations.
- 62% would rather use an AI tool that knows their purchase history than explain their needs to a sales associate.
- Millennial shoppers are the most enthusiastic about AI remembering their preferences, with 66% in favor – more than any other generation.
Previous chart: One-third of consumers turn to AI when shopping
MarTech is owned by Semrush. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.
Mike Pastore is the Head of Content & Media at Third Door Media, the publisher of the Martech and Search Engine Land websites and the producer of the SMX and MarTech Conferences. In nearly three decades in B2B marketing, Mike has worked as an editor, writer, and marketer. He first wrote about marketing in 1998 for internet.com (later Jupitermedia). He then worked with marketers at some of the best-known brands in B2B tech, creating content for marketing campaigns at both Jupitermedia and QuinStreet. Prior to joining Third Door Media as the Editorial Director of the MarTech website, he led demand generation at B2B media company TechnologyAdvice.
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